PCB Technical - What are the quick ways to make PCB

What are the quick ways to make PCB
With the continuous improvement of electronic communication technology, more and more traditional PCB board manufacturing methods are far from being able to meet this high-speed development era. We want to make PCB circuits with high precision, good performance, and cost-saving really fast. This is undoubtedly the biggest challenge for circuit design engineers.

First: Fast circuit board production method

There are many ways to manufacture and process circuit boards, but the main manufacturing methods are divided into two categories: physical methods and chemical methods:

Physical method: by using various knives and electric tools, manually carve out the unnecessary copper on the circuit board. Electronic Manufacturing Service

Chemical method: By covering the protective layer on the blank copper clad board, the unnecessary copper is etched away in the corrosive solution, which is the method used by most developers at present. There are many ways to cover the protective layer, mainly including the most traditional manual lacquer method, customized sticker method, film photosensitive method, and thermal transfer printing PCB method that has only been developed in recent years. Electronic Manufacturing Service

Hand-drawing paint: Use a brush or a hard pen to manually draw the shape of the circuit on the blank copper clad laminate. After drying it, it can be put into the solution and corroded directly.

Adhesive stickers: There are various stickers on the market that are made into strips and discs. Different stickers can be combined on the blank circuit board according to the needs, and they can be corroded after being glued tightly.

Film photosensitive: Print the PCB circuit board diagram on the film by a laser printer, and pre-coat a layer of photosensitive material on the blank copper clad laminate (the coated copper clad laminate is sold in the market), and expose, develop, fix and clean in the darkroom environment Then it can be corroded in the solution.

Thermal transfer: Print the circuit directly on the blank circuit board through a thermal transfer printer, and then put it in the corrosive liquid to corrode.

Second: The advantages and disadvantages of the two methods of rapid circuit board production

Physical method: This method is laborious and has low accuracy. Only relatively simple lines can be used. The main shortcomings are labor-consuming and time-consuming, accuracy is not easy to control, and unrecoverable. It has high requirements for operation, and currently few people have adopted it.

Chemical method: The process is relatively complicated, but the precision is controllable. It is currently the most widely used rapid plate-making method, but there are still many problems.

1) The printing accuracy depends on the accuracy of the printer cartridge used. Printers with poor performance print uneven lines, which can easily cause disconnection and adhesion during the corrosion process.

2) The exposure and development time of the photosensitive plate is not easy to control, and the best exposure time of each batch of plates will be different, which requires repeated trials to master.

3) The control of the corrosion process is difficult: it is impossible for a monolithic corrosion board to be equipped with the professional control equipment used by the circuit board factory for mass production, and the temperature, concentration, and pH of the corrosion solution will have a greater impact on the corrosion quality. To do a good job of a circuit board, you must have many experience accumulation. Otherwise, the material scrap will be very serious.

4) The photosensitive plate has higher environmental requirements and must be stored in full darkness and low temperature, and the exposure process must also be carried out under darkroom conditions. Electronic Manufacturing Service

5) The finished board etched out of the PCB must be worked by hand, and it is difficult to control the accuracy of manual punching.